Experience Points in Adventure

Let’s look at character advancement in Dungeons & Dragons using the numbers from the core rules and assuming a medium difficulty encounter. You can see that the number of encounters per level to advance is all over the place, resulting in certain levels taking many more challenges to advance than others. Using the XP Table, you’ll face an average of 11.6 medium encounters to level a character. The actual number ranges from 6 to more than 17 encounters. This triggers something in our brains and makes us want to fix the system. 

We're not even going to reference the Adventuring Day XP chart in the Dungeon Master's Guide… that is just a crazy thing that we propose you ignore.

Player’s Handbook		Dungeon Master’s Guide		Adventure: Tombs of Cathedra
Class Level	Experience Points	Medium Challenge  XP Threshold	Challenges To Next Level	House Rule Experience Points	Challenges To Next Level
1	0	50	6	0	10
2	300	100	6	500	10
3	900	150	12	1,500	10
4	2,700	250	15.2	3,000	10
5	6,500	500	15	5,500	10
6	14,000	600	15	10,500	10
7	23,000	750	14.7	16,500	10
8	34,000	900	15.6	24,000	10
9	48,000	1,100	14.5	33,000	10
10	64,000	1,200	17.5	44,000	10
11	85,000	1,600	9.4	56,000	10
12	100,000	2,000	10	72,000	10
13	120,000	2,200	9	92,000	10
14	140,000	2,500	10	114,000	10
15	165,000	2,800	10.7	139,000	10
16	195,000	3,200	9.3	167,000	10
17	225,000	3,900	10.3	199,000	10
18	265,000	4,200	9.5	238,000	10
19	305,000	4,900	10.2	280,000	10
20	355,000	5,700	n/a	329,000	n/a

For the Adventure: Tombs of Cathedra campaign we wanted to avoid milestone leveling and do something more like Experience Point leveling, but not quite. We’ll be using a challenge based advancement system. The table values are there to show the math behind the challenge system. Challenges are based on the CR system in the D&D Core Rules and include monster encounters, traps, environmental or social tests, and acquiring treasure. Once a character has overcome 10 level appropriate challenges they advance their character level. However, not every challenge is level appropriate and so they may have either a lesser or greater value in the challenge system.

There are five categories of challenge difficulty.

Facile. A facile challenge is nearly effortless for your character to overcome and has no challenge value.

Easy. An easy encounter doesn’t tax the characters’ resources or put them in serious peril. They might lose a few hit points, but victory is pretty much guaranteed. Easy challenges have a value of one-half and it requires two easy challenges to gain a full challenge success.

Medium. A medium encounter usually has one or two scary moments for the players, but the characters should emerge victorious with no casualties. One or more of them might need to use healing resources. Medium challenges are normal, level appropriate situations for the character and have a value of one success.

Hard. A hard encounter could go badly for the adventurers. Weaker characters might get taken out of the fight, and there’s a slim chance that one or more characters might die. Because of their increased difficulty, a hard encounter has a value of one and a half challenge successes.

Deadly. A deadly encounter could be lethal for one or more player characters. Survival often requires good tactics and quick thinking, and the party risks defeat. These deadly challenges are worth two challenge successes.

Challenge Difficulty Reward:

  Facile       0.0 points

  Easy         0.5 point

  Medium   1.0 point

  Hard         1.5 points

  Deadly     2.0 points

   * 10 points = level advancement